The invention relates generally to the field of photography, and in particular to cameras. More specifically, the invention relates to a disposable single-use or one-time-use camera with a belt-drive connection between a manual film winder and a film winding spool.
Film and cameras that are all in one, commonly referred to as disposable single-use or one-time-use cameras, have become well known. The one-time-use camera is a simple point-and-shoot type camera comprising an opaque plastic main body part that supports a conventional film cartridge in a cartridge receiving chamber, an unexposed film roll prewound from the film cartridge onto a film supply spool in a film supply chamber, a fixed-focus taking lens, a film metering mechanism with a rotatably supported metering sprocket that engages the filmstrip, a manually rotatable film winding thumbwheel rotatably engaged with a film winding or take-up spool inside the film cartridge, a singleblade shutter, a manually depressible shutter release button, an exposure counter wheel that has a numerical series of evenly spaced exposure count indicia and is incrementally rotated to successively view the exposure count indicia, an antibackup pawl that engages the exposure counter wheel to prevent its reverse rotation, a direct see-through viewfinder having front and rear viewfinder lenses, and in some models an electronic flash. A pair of opaque plastic front and rear cover parts house the main body part between them to complete the camera. The rear cover part connects to the main body part and/or to the front cover part to make the main body part light-tight. A decorative cardboard outer box or label at least partially covers the front and rear cover parts and has respective openings for the taking lens, etc.
After each picture is taken with the one-time-use camera, the photographer manually rotates the thumbwheel in a film winding direction to similarly rotate the film winding spool inside the film cartridge. This winds an exposed frame of the filmstrip from a rear backframe opening in the main body part into the film cartridge and advances an unexposed frame of the filmstrip from the unexposed film roll to the rear backframe opening. The rewinding movement of the filmstrip the equivalent of slightly more than one frame width rotates the metering sprocket in engagement with the filmstrip to decrement the exposure counter wheel to its next lower-numbered indicia and to pivot a metering lever into engagement with the thumbwheel in order to prevent further manual rotation of the thumbwheel in the film winding direction. Manually depressing the shutter release button to take another picture pivots the metering lever out of engagement with the thumbwheel to permit renewed rotation of the thumbwheel in the film winding direction. When the maximum number of exposures available on the filmstrip have been made, and the filmstrip is completely wound into the film cartridge, the one-time-use camera is given to a photofinisher who separates the rear cover part from the main body part and removes the film cartridge with the exposed filmstrip from the cartridge receiving chamber. Then, he removes the exposed filmstrip from the film cartridge to develop the latent images and make prints for the customer.
Typically, the film winding thumbwheel is rotatably supported on top of the main body part, above the cartridge receiving chamber, and it has a depending coaxial stem in coaxial engagement with a protruding end portion of the film winding spool inside the film cartridge. This construction allows the thumbwheel to radially protrude slightly from an elongate narrow opening in the rear cover part in order to be manually rotated. However, the thumbwheel may not protrude sufficiently from the narrow opening for some people to be able to readily grasp it.
A one-time-use camera comprising:
a film cartridge with a film winding spool that is rotatable to wind a filmstrip into the film cartridge;
a manually rotatable film winding thumbwheel having an axis that is parallel to an axis of the film winding spool; and
a rotatable endless belt rotationally engaging the film winding thumbwheel and the film winding spool to permit rotation of the thumbwheel to rotate the spool.
Since the endless belt permits the axis of the film winding thumbwheel to be spaced from the axis of the film winding spool, rather than being coaxial, the thumbwheel can protrude substantially from a narrow opening in a rear cover part to allow it to be easily grasped in order to be rotated.